You and Me
by pressontoknow
Summary: The morning Forrest is discharged from the hospital for the second time and proposes to Maggie.


She walked quickly into the hospital that morning, knowing she was a little late and had missed the start of visiting hours. Forrest would be worried. She'd woken up late after a night full of horrible dreams with him shot and dying all over again. Practically sprinting through the door in her eagerness to seem him alive and recuperating, Maggie stopped dead in her tracks to see his bed empty and made up.

Her heart dropped, the irrational part of her screaming that he'd died in the night and no one had told her, while another part argued that there was a logical explanation. She took in a quiet, gasping breath and breathed it out slowly, her lips pursed like she was smoking. She turned—

To see him standing right in front of her in the doorway.

"Forrest!" she breathed, relief evident in her tone. "What the _hell_ are you doing out of bed?"

"Got discharged," he explained simply, and walked past her to the chair she'd spent so many hours in. "Just came back to get my things." He picked a small box up off the seat and deposited it in his coat pocket as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on.

Maggie raised a quizzical brow. "Got discharged? Or forced the doctor to sign off on it?"

"Well," Forrest grunted, "I may have stared at him for a bit longer than necessary when he said he was hesitant to let me leave."

Maggie put her hands on her hips and glared at him. "Forrest, you can't just decide that you're well! You got _shot_ two weeks ago, and a doctor you are not!"

Forrest let out a heavy sigh and came to stand in front of her. "Maggie, I'm comin' back in two days for a checkup. You're welcome to come."

"You'd better believe I'll be coming," she snapped, her tone a little gentler now. She had no backbone when he loomed over her like that, his presence large and comforting. "I'm the one who's gotta nurse you back to health."

He squinted at her words. "You don't gotta do anything, Maggie."

Her throat closed up at his words. She knew what he was referring to and decided to ignore it. "Well I love you so yeah, I gotta." His next words floored her.

"I love you too."

She gaped up at him, blown away. In all her life, Maggie had never expected to actually hear those words from this man. She was pretty sure he felt that way, but Forrest had a hard time even expressing lesser emotions such as happiness and grief, so love? Not something she'd expected from him.

His mouth quirked up a bit at the side at her expression. "I got you somethin'," he continued, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the box he'd come back for. When she didn't react immediately he took her hand and placed the box in her palm.

After a moment Maggie pulled herself together and opened the box to reveal…a small diamond ring. She gasped, her fingers flying to her mouth. "Forrest…"

"Would you marry me, Maggie," Forrest asked, the lack of inflection making it sound more like a statement than a question.

Tears rushed to her eyes and Maggie clenched her jaw, trying to hold herself together enough to respond to him. "I can't, Forrest."

He stared down at her, and she couldn't read his expression, which wasn't necessarily rare, but she'd gotten better about it in the past year and usually she had _some_ idea of what he was thinking. When he didn't say anything she decided he at least deserved an explanation.

"Forrest," she continued, her voice soft and broken as she stared down at the ring, this beautiful ring that he'd taken the time to choose just for her, "there's nothing in the whole world that would make me happier than marrying you."

He grunted at this. "What's the hold up then?"

Maggie shook her head. "You don't want me, Forrest. Before…you didn't know, so you thought I was, I dunno, _pure_ or something, not damaged goods like you know I am now. You don't have to feel obligated to me just because we slept together a few times."

"First of all," Forrest interjected before she could say anymore, "I wasn't just sleepin' with you, I was livin' with you and takin' care of you and…" He seemed surprised at how much he'd already said, but somehow still continued. "Second, call yourself damaged goods one more time and I'll dig up that bastard and shoot 'im some more, probably rip my stitches open and you'll have to mend me back to health _again_."

Maggie glared at him, certain he would do just that.

"Third, I wanna marry you because I love you and I don't want you goin' nowhere. You're the type to think I just want you here to nurse me back to health and then skedaddle off once I'm well. That's not what I want, Maggie."

A tear slipped down her cheek and she brushed it away angrily. "Forrest, you're a good man, a _really_ good man, and you just… I don't want you throwin' yourself away on me! You don't even know it all!"

"Then tell me!" Forrest demanded, his voice raising as he stepped closer to me.

"I…" She swallowed hard. "You don't know…that that wasn't the first time I was raped! That the other time was when I was fourteen and my daddy got drunk…" Her inhale was like a sob. "And so I went to live in Chicago and danced for a living, and I didn't get raped again but I got beat up a lot and my body wasn't mine… And then I went to bed with you and you made me feel like I was in _control_ for once, like I wasn't just havin' to wait for the next blow!"

His gaze was like steel as he stared down at her. "Anything else?" he asked harshly.

She glared at him, irrationally angry that he wouldn't back down, wouldn't give up on her. "You're a good man, Forrest. I know you don't think so but you are. There's a lot of girls out there better than me."

Forrest let out a heavy breath. "Lord willin' this is the only time I'll ever insult you, but that's just plain stupid, Maggie. Ain't no one better for me than you and you know it. 'Bout time you start accepting it too."

Now she turned her gaze to the ring, overwhelmed with emotion. She wanted him, she wanted him more than she'd ever wanted anything before. All she had to do was believe him, to see herself the way he saw her. Finally she sighed and met his gaze again. "You want to put it on my finger now, or wait til we're in front of the judge?"

His lips quirked, pretty much the closest he ever got to smiling, and he shrugged. "'S up to you. Ya got anyone you wanna tell before?"

She gave him a wide smile and closed the box, slipping it carefully back in his sweater pocket and then wrapping her arms tight around his waist. "You 'n me is just you 'n me, Forrest. The boys'll figure it out in a couple years' time."

She burrowed closer as his arms came around her shoulders and held her tight. Forrest wasn't much with his words, but what he lacked in verbal communication he made up for in physical. She could feel how much he loved her in how tight he held her.

"Let's get goin' then," Forrest rumbled into her ear, his face pressed in her hair. "It's about time I stop livin' in sin with you."

At the sound of her delighted laugh he held her closer. "All right then, husband," Maggie exclaimed as she pulled away, "we'd best get to the courthouse before 5 o'clock."

She could tell her eagerness pleased him as he huffed out a longsuffering sigh and tugged on the brim of his hat. "If I'da known marryin' you was the way to get you on time to things, I'd 've made you my wife a long time ago."

"I love you, Forrest Bondurant," Maggie replied, standing on her tiptoes to press a firm kiss to his lips.

He grunted and gave her hand a firm squeeze as he led her out the door.


End file.
